Press

RIALTO, California – August 31, 2020: Plant Prefab, the nation’s first prefabricated design and construction company dedicated to sustainable building, materials, processes, and operations, has completed two more single-family homes at The Palisades at Squaw Valley in Olympic Valley, CA. The residences were custom designed by The Brown Studio and prefabricated in Plant’s Rialto, CA factory using Plant’s innovative new Plant Building System™. The prefabricated components were transported by truck to the new development and each home was efficiently installed in roughly two-and-a-half days.

Both homes feature 2,800 square feet of conditioned living space, encompassing four bedrooms with en-suite baths and an open-plan kitchen, dining, and living area. The modern-style residences also include a media room, large decks for outdoor entertaining, and a 567-square-foot, two-car garage. Large windows provide ample natural daylight and tranquil views, while exterior finishes of Western Red Cedar and earth-toned metal help the homes blend seamlessly with their forested surroundings.

“It was very important to us that Plant was able to build to our exact design specifications,” says Rory Brown, Principal Interior Designer at The Brown Studio. “We worked directly with Plant’s factory to ensure that the fit and finish met our standards and our client’s expectations.”

This level of customization and quality control was made possible by Plant’s new, patented Plant Building System, which utilizes advanced engineering to translate architectural plans into specialized building components called Plant Panels™ and Plant Modules™. Plant engineers then determine the most efficient and durable way to build each component to meet local zoning, structural, and seismic requirements, ensuring optimal thermal performance and durability for the life of the home.

To minimize freight costs, each of the home’s garages, decks, roofs, and hallways were prefabricated as Plant Panels. The main living spaces were built as fully-volumetric Plant Modules, allowing Plant to complete 95% of the finish work. By building in tandem with site work, and installing all plumbing, electric, HVAC, flooring, tile, cabinets, and appliances in their factory, Plant was able to reduce the overall construction timeline by 50% over site-based methods. Plant’s work was not affected by weather, and high-demand local labor was limited to construction of the foundation and completion of paint and siding.

“Plant gives us a faster, more predictable schedule,” says project manager Lindsay Brown, Principal and Owner of The Brown Studio. “And by shifting more work to the factory, we’re able to ensure a consistent, high level of quality and lower overall project costs.”

The homes are the fifth and sixth custom residences that Plant has delivered to the Olympic Valley development, with 25 more slated for the coming year.

“Plant offers an ideal solution for the Lake Tahoe housing market, where—like many communities in California—demand for high-quality homebuilding far exceeds the capacity of local contractors,” says Plant Founder & CEO Steve Glenn. “The Plant Building System allows us to meet the design and quality expectations of discerning architects, while delivering the time and cost efficiencies of offsite construction.”

The Olympic Valley projects are among the first to be fully constructed utilizing the new system, which greatly reduces the transportation and installation barriers of conventional modular building methods while offering far greater design flexibility. Advanced factory processes provide windfall time and cost efficiencies, as well as a level of precision and quality control that’s difficult, if not impossible, to provide on a traditional job site.

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ABOUT PLANT PREFAB
With a mission to build a better world by design, Plant Prefab makes it faster and more efficient to build custom, high-quality, healthy, single-family and multi-family homes. Plant Prefab is the first prefabricated residential design and construction company dedicated to sustainable building, materials, processes, and operations.

All Plant Prefab’s projects are prefabricated in the company's 62,000-square-foot homebuilding factory in Rialto, CA utilizing the Plant Building System. Combining advanced engineering with Plant Panels and Plant Modules, specialized components designed and patented by Plant, the Plant Building System provides greater design flexibility, quality control, and time and cost efficiencies than both site-based construction and conventional prefabricated approaches while minimizing the negative impact on energy, water, and resources. Clients can work with any architect they choose, including Plant Prefab's award-winning, in-house design studio.

Plant Prefab is defining a new standard in residential home design and construction, helping individuals, architects, and developers efficiently design and build high-quality, cost-efficient, healthy homes. Plant Prefab was funded by Amazon, Obvious Ventures, and others.